'With great code comes great responsibility'

Dear Bob Crow:

For f*ck's sake, get an education.

The Victoria Line was automated from its opening day in the late 1960s. It has remained automated ever since. ATO is also *already* being installed across the network, so this is not news. And the DLR, like the Victoria Line, is also fully automated.

Note, however, that the DLR still has *staff on the trains*. They're called "Passenger Service Operatives" (or some such) and, yes, they are trained to drive the trains when absolutely necessary and at very low speeds. Furthermore, they're expected to help passengers evacuate trains when required—including when the trains are in tunnels.

All that automation would do is downgrade the driver to the level of an old-school train guard. They're still responsible for the passengers on their trains, and they still have to check the doors. So no worries there. (Yes, they'll be paid a bit less in real terms, but by the time this happens, I suspect £50K won't buy as much as it does today.)

As for manned ticket offices: I suggest you check out Rome's metro network (such as it is). Note that not a single station that isn't a major interchange has a ticket office. Nor was one ever provided. Why? Because passengers are already used to buying tickets from bars and newsagents instead. The pricing is piss-simple and easy to follow too. (€1 buys you 75 minutes of travel on both the bus network and the metro. See? No confusing "zones".) Ticket machines in the stations themselves will also sell you any ticket you like, in multiple languages. And they don't even have anything like London's Oyster cards.

Stations still have station staff, but they're there to provide a presence, to provide general assistance, and to keep an eye on the station itself. They don't sit behind a window all day.

If I can read a bloody website and the occasional industry magazine, so can you. And, of course, as the boss of the National Union of Rail and Maritime Transport Workers, you most likely do read such materials. So you should f*cking well know all this. I do, and I don't even work in your industry!

So please stop laying down the bullshit so thickly, Mr. Crow. You're talking out of your anus and you bloody well know it. (If you don't know it, you should step down from your position on the grounds of incompetency.) There really is no excuse for your arse-biscuit hailstorms.

Yes, there will be changes to the positions available in TfL by the time ATO becomes the norm, but that was always going to be the case. Life is change. Deal with it.

And perhaps, instead of calling a bloody strike at the drop of a leaked memo, you could try putting your union's funds towards *retraining* members instead, so that they can continue to have a future, regardless of the surprises life throws at them.